Crumb (1994)

Absolutely the worst movie.

Absolutely Brilliant!

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

While a college student during the years 1968 through 1972, one of my electives was an English course taught by a free wheeling prof who's primary reading assignments consisted of Crumb comic books. I didn't know that when I signed up for the course, but even if I did it wouldn't have mattered because I didn't know who Robert Crumb was at the time. I could have opted to drop the class but then, as now, I was always interested in alternative points of view, so I stuck it out. Just like I stuck it out watching this flick, which for some I'm sure offers a semblance of artistic merit, but to my mind more closely approached publisher Deirdre English's assessment of her contemporary in the story, a study of Crumb as someone with an arrested juvenile vision.Physically, Crumb looks like an anorexic Grouch Marx, with Coke bottle eyeglasses and a temperament throughout the picture that seems to settle on a constant state of bemusement. This was all rather unsettling to me as he described what one might consider a horrific childhood, and if that weren't enough, he had two brothers who turned out even worse than he did. Charles Crumb, obsessed with comic books from an early age to the exclusion of all else, eventually committed suicide a short time after this film was released. Brother Maxon's maturity as an adult can be measured by the resentment he still feels for his role as a supply boy in his older brothers' childhood comics club.That Crumb would eventually find someone he could marry is puzzling given his masochistic and perverse views of women, but there wasn't just one, but two lucky women who tied the knot with the celebrated cartoonist. Both were interviewed for this film and they're not disparaging, perhaps a testament to the idea that they were just as weird as he was. In fact, Aline Crumb admits it - "My mind is shot..."Yet on another level I can relate to Crumb's detachment from a world that seems to depend on crass commercialism. However refusing to wear clothes that endorse commercial products is about as far as I go. I have to admit though, I was surprised by Crumb's refusal to accept a hundred grand for a publishing gig that would have cured a lot of his family's financial problems. In a certain sense, the man stayed true to his inner self, though for the life of me, I have no idea what kind of inner self that could possibly be.

Robert Crumb is a cartoonist who is most famous for Keep On Truckin' and Fritz the Cat. He is renowned for his outsider counter-culture cartoons in the 60s and 70s. When he is first on the screen, he seems to be the introverted weird nerd that everybody picks on. The movie interviews his brothers Maxon and Charles, and then we realize that Robert is most normal and well-adjusted of the brothers. Robert reveals his juvenile sexual visions, the tormented childhood, and his controversial inappropriate cartoons.This is an interesting insight into the outsider mind of Robert Crump. I also love the two brothers and their relationships. These are fascinating unique American characters. It's also interesting to see the women in Robert's life. The movie is a little too long. I find that parts of it is relatively repetitive. Overall, it's a good documentary of an interesting personality.

Primarily: You are in the presence of a master creating and displaying his art, and throughout these portions of the film any kind of artist will find much to learn from this man. The comparison made that he is the "modern" Dürer is very apt.Secondarily: You are watching one the most humorous and (blackly) entertaining films ever produced anywhere. Yes, we are reassured once again that an (the) artists' personality(ies) cannot never be confused with or substituted for the work they have give us; the strongest humor comes from the aon-old maxim the truth is stranger than fiction...p.s. One last thing - had seen this piece over a decade ago, but a recent review of Crumb's 2009 outstanding "Genesis" work led back here and there to review. If you haven't read it yet do it tonight/day!

I'm in complete shock. I must admit that when it started off with David Lynch presents I knew I was in for something, but I had no idea what. I cannot believe that anyone would expose their life like this. Robert Crumb is what would be described as a pretty "sick" individual, his family more so. His brothers are talking about suicide attempts, molesting women, etc. Robert Crumb is basically letting you see ever part of his life. We even see him ride around on women's backs, which is apparently one of his favorite things in the whole world.If you are not familiar with him, he is a sort of satirical, sexually obsessed cartoonist, who among other things makes cartoons about his own crazy life. And he is a likable guy. Grim and openly perverted but he does have a personality. He is the amusing outcast who shows the world for what he thinks it is. Director Terry Zwigoff does this almost like a fictional film, of course there are interviews and most of it is conversations between Robert and people who knows him, but sometimes you think of him more as a Woody Allen kind of fictional characters. I is so far from the norm, and so much a character it's hard to believe he's real.The film itself has this weird form of just being. It's a dark comedy, and though it never stops being interesting and you can feel the somewhat morbid comedic atmosphere it's just hard to categorize as a comedy. It's more. It's something true, and something to think about; Though it's pretty impossible to figure out what it is you are supposed to think about. Individuality, society, norms, standards, art, perhaps everything in existence.At it's core you just know this is something special. It's not just the Crumb family quirks and distancing life style, the complete honesty about it and the emotions this brings, it's the look at the artistic work it creates, and maybe vice versa.This film needs to be experienced!